Tonya Harding
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|residence= Portland, Oregon, United States |height= 154.9 cm |weight= |partner= |coach= Diane Rawlinson |skating club= |turned pro= |combined total= |combined date= |SP score= |SP date= |FS score= |FS date= }}
Tonya Maxine Harding (born November 12, 1970) is a former figure skater from Portland, Oregon. Despite a tough childhood in an unstable family, as well as being plagued by asthma (aggravated by smoking), she became an elite figure skater. She won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships twice and placed second in the 1991 World Championships. She was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition.
She became notorious for her part in the conspiracy to harm competitor Nancy Kerrigan at a practice session during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Early life
Harding is the daughter of LaVona and Al Harding. She had a half-brother named Chris Davison (deceased). Harding began skating at an early age. She landed her first triple lutz at age 12. Her mother made many of her skating costumes.[Announcer's comments during Tonya Harding's 1991 Worlds short program], accessed July 16, 2006.She dropped out of high school during her sophomore year, and later earned a GED. She married Jeff Gillooly in 1990, when she was 19. [Tonya Harding biography at tonyaharding.com], accessed July 16, 2006.
Skating career
Harding began to work her way up the competitive skating ladder in the mid-1980's. She placed 6th at the 1986 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, 5th in 1987 and 1988, and 3rd in 1989. At the 1990 event, suffering from the flu, she could only place 7th. Harding was a powerful jumper and spinner, but had a reputation of being an inconsistent competitor and unpolished in terms of style. She was also held back by mediocre compulsory figures before they were eliminated from competition in 1990.1991 was Harding's breakthrough year. She landed her first triple axel in competition at the U.S. Championships, winning the title with the first 6.0 ever given to a female singles skater for technical merit at that event. She competed well at the World Championships, placing second. She again completed the triple axel during her long program. (In her career, Harding landed four triple axels in competition, and all of them in 1991: one at the U.S. Championships, one at the World Championships, and two at the fall Skate America competition.)
In 1992, Harding placed 3rd at the U.S. Championships after twisting her ankle in practice, and 4th at the 1992 Winter Olympics. At the 1992 World Championships, she placed only 6th in a weak field. The following season, Harding was noticeably overweight and out of condition, and she skated so poorly at the 1993 U.S. Championships that she failed to qualify for the World Championship team.
The latter part of Harding's competitive career was marked by a series of accidents, incidents, and excuses, causing television commentators to observe that no competition was complete without Tonya having a crisis. Some of these "crises" included:
- Skating magazine reported that at Skate America in 1991, Harding was stranded in heavy traffic just before her event was scheduled to begin, and had to hitch a ride with people who drove her backwards through traffic to the arena.
- In the short program at the 1993 U.S. Championships, Harding had to ask permission from the referee to restart her program after the back of her dress came unhooked as she began to skate.
- At 1993 Skate America, Harding stopped midway through her free skate and complained to the referee that her skate blade had become loose. She was allowed to resume her program after her blades were checked by a skate technician.
- In late 1993, Harding was scheduled to compete in a regional qualifying competition for the U.S. Championships. However, before the event, its organizers received an anonymous telephoned bomb threat against Harding, which led the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) to excuse her from having to qualify. Morry Stillwell, former USFSA president, later asserted in a Usenet posting[Morry Stillwell Usenet posting], accessed July 16, 2006 that the FBI had evidence that Harding herself participated in making the threat.
- The medal ceremony at the 1994 U.S. Championships had to be delayed because Harding could not be found backstage after the competition.
- At the 1994 Winter Olympics, Harding almost failed to appear on the ice when her name was called for the free skating because she was scrambling to replace a broken lace. The replacement lace turned out to be too short, and after missing the opening jump in her program she again had to ask the referee for permission to restart.
The Kerrigan attack
Harding became notorious for allegedly conspiring to harm competitor Nancy Kerrigan in an attack, which occurred on January 6, 1994 at a practice session during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly hired Shane Stant to strike Kerrigan on the knee. Harding won that event, while Kerrigan's injury forced her withdrawal. After Harding admitted to helping to cover up the attack, the USFSA and United States Olympic Committee initiated proceedings to remove her from the 1994 Olympic team, but Harding retained her place after threatening legal action. She finished eighth while Kerrigan, recovered from her injuries, finished second.On February 1, 1994, Harding's ex-husband accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against Harding. Harding avoided further prosecution and a possible jail sentence by pleading guilty on March 16 to hindering the investigation of the attack. She received three years probation, 500 hours of community service and a $160,000 fine. She maintains her innocence in the planning of the attack, contradicting the confessions of the alleged conspirators, and got a tattoo of an angel on her back, allegedly as a symbol of her innocence.
After conducting its own investigation of the attack, the USFSA concluded that Harding knew of the attack before it happened, stripped Harding's 1994 title and banned her for life from participating in sanctioned events and becoming a sanctioned coach. Although the USFSA has no control over professional skating events, Harding was also persona non grata on the pro circuit because few skaters and promoters would work with her. So, while pro skating enjoyed a tremendous boom in popularity as a consequence of the scandal, Harding played no part in it.[A timeline of events in the scandal, Washington Post], accessed July 16, 2006.
The notoriety of the "Kerrigan Attack" was so ubiquitous that a novella "Celebrities In Disgrace" was written by Elizabeth Searle. The novella was adapted by Searle and composer Abigail Al-Doory to "," a chamber opera produced in May of 2006 by Tufts University and performed at the American Repertory Theatre's Zero Arrow Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts under the direction of Meron Langsner. As of 2005, the novella on which the opera was based is also being adapted to a short film.
During the buildup to the 1994 Olympics, Charles Barkley made the following memorable quote concerning Harding:
- I heard Tonya Harding is calling herself the Charles Barkley of figure skating. I was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized I have no character.
Later celebrity
Tonya Harding entered the world of the nude Internet celebrity with the appearance of a pornographic "Wedding Video" that shows her having sex with her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. Gillooly (who, not long after the scandal began to fade from prominence, changed his name to "Jeff Stone") sold the tape to a tabloid show after having been implicated as a conspirator in the Kerrigan attack. Stills from the tape were published by Penthouse in September 1994, and the tape itself[Tonya and Jeff's Wedding Night, IMDB], accessed July 16, 2006. was released at about the same time. Harding tried to distance herself from it by asserting publicly that she was "drunk as a skunk" while the tape was being made.
Harding appeared on a USA Pro Wrestling show in 1994 as the manager for wrestler Art Barr.
In late 1996, Harding used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to help revive an 81-year-old woman, Alice Olson, who collapsed at a bar in Portland, Oregon, while playing video poker.
Harding has had a number of run-ins with the law since her involvement with the Kerrigan attack. Some of the incidents which have been reported in the press include:
- On May 25, 1995, it was reported that Harding claimed she was being stalked by professional golfers driving a white Lincoln Town Car, resulting in a car chase involving Harding, her ex-husband Gillooly, and the police.
- On February 12, 1997, Harding claimed that she was abducted at knife-point outside her home by a bushy-haired man who forced her to drive to a rural area, where she rammed her truck into a tree and escaped by running into the woods. Police found no evidence of an abduction. This incident happened on the opening weekend of the 1997 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
- On October 16, 1997, Harding reported that her truck had been stolen from a shopping mall parking lot.
- On January 6, 2000, six years to the day after the attack on Kerrigan, Harding was in the news again after she lost control of her truck on an icy road and landed in a ditch. She and a male companion then allegedly made threats against a press photographer.
- On February 24, 2000, Harding was ordered by a Clark County judge to stay away from alcohol and her former boyfriend, Darren Silver, after being booked on fourth-degree Domestic Violence assault charges for punching Silver and throwing a hubcap at him at their Camas, Washington residence. Harding was also sentenced to 3 days in jail and 10 days of community service on a work crew. Shortly before this, Harding had been attempting to make a comeback as a professional skater, but the hubcap incident effectively put an end to her skating career.
- On April 20, 2002, Harding was involved in another accident with her truck. She was cited for drunk driving and a violation of her probation agreement from her 2000 conviction.
- On October 23, 2005, Harding, apparently again under the influence of alcohol, was involved in a fight at her home in Vancouver, Washington with Christopher Nolan, a man she described as her boyfriend. Initially, she made a 911 call claiming to have been assaulted in her home by two masked men. For his part, Nolan claimed that Harding attacked him after having too much to drink. In the end, Nolan was charged with assault and ordered to stay away from Harding and to avoid alcohol.
Boxing career
In 2002, Tonya Harding boxed on the Fox TV network Celebrity Boxing event against Paula Jones, winning the fight. On February 22, 2003, she made her official women's professional boxing debut, losing a four round decision in the undercard of the Mike Tyson-Clifford Etienne bout, amid rumors that she was broke and needed to box to get some money.Harding won her third pro bout against Alejandra Lopez at the Creek Nations Gaming Center.
On March 23, 2004, it was reported that Harding cancelled a planned boxing match against Tracy Carlton in Oakland, California because of an alleged death threat against her.
On June 24 2004, after reportedly not having boxed for over a year, Harding was beaten in a match in Edmonton, Alberta by boxer Amy Johnson. Fans reportedly booed Harding as she entered the ring, and cheered wildly for Johnson as she won in the third round. Harding later protested the outcome.
As of January, 2005 her record is 4-3-0 (1 KO).[From the rink, to the ring: Scandalous skater Tonya Harding tries to fight off her past in new arena, by Stan Grossfeld, Boston Globe, January 26, 2005], accessed July 16, 2006.
Pop culture references
In an episode of the television program Seinfeld called The Understudy, Jerry Seinfeld is dating the understudy of stage performer Bette Midler named Gennice, who is played by Adelaide Miller. Seinfeld's friend George accidentally injures Midler in a softball game and the understudy has to take over Midler's part in the musical Rochelle Rochelle. Enraged fans then call Seinfeld "Gilooly", in addition to George and Gennice getting into mishaps and being shunned for the incident. When Gennice takes the stage, she has a problem with the laces on her boot and, in an act reminiscent of Harding's bootlace incident, tearfully asks that she be allowed to start over.References
External links
- [TonyaHarding.org]
- [TonyaHarding.com]
- [Tonya Harding videos at youtube.com]
- [}}}] at NNDB
- [The Top 10 Boston Sports Stories]
- [sptimes.com] Harding, Kerrigan are linked forever by skating incident
- [courttv.com] Interview with Harvey Schiller, former Exec. Dir. US Olympic Committee (talks about Harding)
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